23 | March | 2016 | awritersfountain

It is that time of year again, Spring has sprung and poets all over the world are limbering up to take part in NaPoWriMo. Founded in 2011, I have been a participant since 2014 (when I discovered it) having battled Camp NaNoWriMo and the full event in the Autumn in 2013. From time to time I have discovered other such boot camps but to be honest I have rarely done anything with the writing afterwards. A waste of over 100,000. So now is my strategy planning time.

I love taking part just for the fun and comradery of the event and the scheduled commitment to writing – which after last week, I know I can do alone. I had submission deadlines as well as day job work and performances, so I basically drew up an old school timetable (not done since exam revision time) and was as hard-core. Relentless. I managed all submissions as a result and even had a poem published. This year I need a Post-NaPoWriMo Plan.

As with other years I have signed the blog up as a participating site and will be writing about the event throughout the month. I will also post extracts from the poems I write. Many people will be taking part posting full poems and another aspect of the event is reading work by other poets. I am going to carve NaPo reading time into my April writing time to do just that.

Find out more and sign up your site here http://www.napowrimo.net/

napofeature3 This poem featured in the Top 10 listing for ‘Best poems about Spring’ compiled by The Guardian in 2014.

In Perpetual Spring by Amy Gerstler

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Amy Gerstler won the 1991 National Book Critics Circle Award in Poetry for Bitter Angel (1990). Her early work includes White Marriage/Recovery (1984), and her more recent works include Nerve Storm (1993), Medicine (2000), Ghost Girl (2004), and Dearest Creature (2009), which the New York Times named a Notable Book of the Year. A graduate of Pitzer College and Bennington College, Gerstler has taught at the Art Center College of Design, the University of Southern California, and the Bennington Writing Seminars program. She lives in California with her husband, the artist and author Benjamin Weissman.

This year I am achieving something I attempted in 2015 (and failed) to perform less and write more. I will still support the regular open mic poetry events I enjoy, just not on a monthly basis. I am always on the look out for new and unusual places to share my words and accept such opportunities readily.

I met Dave Reeves in 2013 on my first return to the poetry mic with Julie Boden in Leamington. He MCed the event as well as performing with his squeeze box and harmonica.

Among many other things Dave does, he is Poet in Residence at the Black Country Living Museum (which is well worth a visit/ family day out). https://www.bclm.co.uk/learning/poet-in-residence/453.htm

The Works’ Canteen is a monthly spoken word night hosted by Dave Reeves and is an event I have scribbled in my diary before now.

There are headliners and open floor spots available and with the £3 admission comes free tea/coffee from the Rolfe Street Café. Which was much appreciated, as was the irony of having a Breakfast Tea at 7:30 pm.

https://www.bclm.co.uk/learning/the-works-canteen/758.htm

Tuesday 1 March 2016

Guest poets: Jan Watts plus R.M.Francis presenting Permission to Speak

Jan Watts, poet and playwright returns in words to Wales for St David’s day. Join the former Birmingham Poet Laureate and find out about Flat Head, Di Bungalow and the food you have to eat in one day on a Pembrokeshire Farm. If you want to know what Jan’s surname almost became – this is a one time offer to find out.

Rob Francis runs the ‘Permission to Speak’ nights in Stourbridge. Tonight he’s been given a permit to The Works’ Canteen where he’ll be introducing some of the regulars from the spoken word and music venue.

MC for the evening is the Black Country Living Museum’s poet-in-residence, Dave Reeves and, as usual, there will be floor spots available.

I was one of Robert’s poets representing a cross-section from PTS. It was great being part of a collective and I enjoyed listening to all the sets.

Jan Watts was fabulous, as always. She opened her set miming putting daffodils in a vase, it was St. David’s Day and she had left the bunch of real flowers on her passenger seat!

The open mic spots were good and it was a pleasure to hear some poets I had not met before. It was a lively and enjoyable night in the café behind the gift shop. I hope to make it back in a few months time.